Being asked for IMM5533, but we are common law partners???

[colcol]

Hello everyone. I'm looking for someone´s expertise or if anyone has had this happen to them. My "wife" is the principal applicant in her family class sponsorship (outland), I'm already a Canadian resident . We are common law partners, we are not, nor have we ever been, married, but have plenty of documentation to prove our relationship. no children, no previous marriages. We submitted her application on October 2024, under Family class COMMON LAW PARTNER, following Document Checklist 5589, appropriately called DOCUMENT CHECKLIST COMMON LAW-PARTNER


Fast forward to today, we get a Document Request that says

"In order for us to continue processing your application, we require the following:

For: Wife Name (UCI xxxxxxxxxxx)
Please submit the following form: IMM 5533 (Kit, Application forms)
https;//xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
This must be submitted to IRCC before April 8 2025.
"

IMM 5533 is titled DOCUMENT CHECKLIST SPOUSE. I have reviewed all our application and confirm that at no point did we ever mistakenly said that we were married, in PR status tracker we correctly appear as applicants for COMMON LAW PARTNER. Is this a common mistake or something? has this happened to anyone before? we can obviously not fill the 5533... because we are not married.

If anyone is familiar with this issue, please let me know. I want to gather other´s experiences before writing IRCC for clarification. Thanks

Ps. Our application has clearly been received and is processing. she already had her Bios and Medicals passed. If we had filed for the wrong category, we would have been told/rejected by now, right?

 

[armoured]

IMM 5533 is titled DOCUMENT CHECKLIST SPOUSE. I have reviewed all our application and confirm that at no point did we ever mistakenly said that we were married, in PR status tracker we correctly appear as applicants for COMMON LAW PARTNER. Is this a common mistake or something? has this happened to anyone before? we can obviously not fill the 5533... because we are not married.

Spouse is often used as just a synonym for spouse or common-law partner. It's probably just confusion on their part.

Did you submit the equivalent form 5589 for common-law partners? If you didn't, that's the issue.

At any rate, you're not going to get in trouble for submitting the 5533 if they ask for it. Just note you're common law partners, not married. Or resubmit the 5589 with an explanation that this is why you didn't submit the 5533 form.

 

[colcol]

Spouse is often used as just a synonym for spouse or common-law partner. It's probably just confusion on their part.

Did you submit the equivalent form 5589 for common-law partners? If you didn't, that's the issue.

At any rate, you're not going to get in trouble for submitting the 5533 if they ask for it. Just note you're common law partners, not married. Or resubmit the 5589 with an explanation that this is why you didn't submit the 5533 form.

Yeah, the 5589 was submitted, I downloaded the whole application from the PR Portal after submitting, just to confirm, and it IS there. So I'm guessing submit 5589 again with letter of explanation is the way to go? I could also fill the 5533 but leave empty the part where it asks for the marriage certificate and include a Letter of explanation saying that we are in fact common law partners and that the proper 5589 was already submitted.

 

[armoured]

Yeah, the 5589 was submitted, I downloaded the whole application from the PR Portal after submitting, just to confirm, and it IS there. So I'm guessing submit 5589 again with letter of explanation is the way to go? I could also fill the 5533 but leave empty the part where it asks for the marriage certificate and include a Letter of explanation saying that we are in fact common law partners and that the proper 5589 was already submitted.

Personally I'd re-submit the 5589 (updating if necessary) but probably either way would work.